Jul. 22, 2015

Steven Davidoff Solomon Deal Professor column examines details of case challenging management-led buyout of Dell, saying it illustrates how mutual funds can do poor job of tracking which stocks they own and in what capacity; holds problem is related to nominee system of share ownership, in which shareholders have right of ownership rather than legal title to stock; notes status can deprive shareholders of appraisal rights in buyouts. MORE

Jul. 8, 2015

International Monetary Fund warns American stock prices are high and that insurers and mutual funds are prey to financial shocks. MORE

Jun. 12, 2015

Brazilian investors rely overwhelmingly on nation's three largest banks for asset management, paying fees that would shock Americans; mutual funds in country charge average annul fee of 3.14 percent, more than triple the American rate; critics say habit and tradition keep customers loyal to Banco do Brasil, Banco itau and Banco Bradesco. MORE

May. 31, 2015

Gretchen Morgenson Fair Game column observes that mutual fund giants Fidelity and Vanguard are dragging their heels as other institutional investors push for shareholders to gain board voting rights; surveys series of no votes by both companies; holds net effect is to maintain status quo and its dire lack of accountability. MORE

May. 12, 2015

Andrew Ross Sorkin DealBook column observes mutual funds have been including shares of private companies like Uber and SpaceX worth $1 billion or more, known in industry as unicorns; notes while that allows investors of all kinds access to psuedo-private companies, it also exposes them to risk that they may not be willing to take; underscores uncertainty in valuations of unicorns, which are not as transparent as public companies or publicly traded bonds. MORE

May. 10, 2015

Jeff Sommer Strategies column examines data showing that investors have increasingly migrated toward funds with low fees, retaining more of their money in the process; observes that change has not cut into profits of fund industry, which has excelled due to economies of scale within surging market. MORE

Apr. 13, 2015

Wall Street banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are not proving to be good at managing mutual funds, despite expanding line that draws billions of dollars; banks' high fees, which take away from ultimate returns, put them at a disadvantage when competing with fund manager Vanguard, which offers low-cost funds. MORE

Apr. 12, 2015

Stocks in 'frontier' emerging-market countries like Kazakhstan, Kenya and Kuwait have posted considerable gains in early 2015, in stark contrast to traditional emerging markets like China, Brazil and Russia; mutual funds that invest in such markets have also soared. MORE

Mar. 23, 2015

Big money managers like Fidelity Investments, T Rowe Price and BlackRock are buying billions of dollars worth of shares from private Silicon Valley start-ups, pooling them into mutual funds that go into retirement accounts of millions of Americans; are attracted by faster growth of private tech firms compared with companies on stock market. MORE

Mar. 15, 2015

Jeff Sommer Strategies column observes that ongoing study conducted twice a year by S&P Dow Jones Indices seems to suggest that no mutual fund managers have been able to outperform rising market consistently during six-year bull market; notes that findings suggest best bet for investors is to pick low-cost index funds, assemble balanced portfolio and avoid active fund management. MORE

Mar. 4, 2015

Eduardo Porter Economic Scene column examines data indicating while majority of American households will not save enough to maintain their lifestyle into retirement, shortfall may have more to do with failures by fund investors than failure to set enough money aside; says fees and transaction costs can bleed accounts dry, and most managed mutual funds are rife with conflicts of interest; examines prospects for regulation that could improve situation. MORE

Mar. 4, 2015

More individual investors have been turning to passive investing or index funds, which attempt to match the performance of main stock and bond markets; pension funds have been slow to embrace these investments despite fact they are often outperformed by them; resistance, particularly in public sector, is likely due to small army of asset managers who would no longer be needed if pension plans turned to index funds. MORE

Oct. 23, 2014

Four new mutual funds started by Joel Greenblatt's Gotham Asset Management have grown to $4.8 billion in assets after using variations of investing approach outlined in his book The Little Book That Beats the Market; funds are part of new category of 'liquid alternatives,' or hedge funds in mutual fund form, that are trendy but still considered risky. MORE

Oct. 16, 2014

Financial experts warn that a small group of giant asset managers that have amassed high-risk, high-yield bonds could find themselves unable to raise enough cash during a sell-off. MORE

Oct. 12, 2014

Exit of Pimco co-founder William H Gross has created confusion for many retirement savers, especially those who invested in his trademark Pimco Total Return bond fund, most popular of its kind; while there is reason for caution, current investors should be calmed by group of Pimco veterans that will replace Gross at bond's helm, instituting a number of structural changes. MORE

Oct. 12, 2014

Several Nasdaq-100 index funds rank among top-performing mutual funds of the third quarter, reflecting success of the technology sector; returns also reflect structure of funds, in which top stocks like Apple, Microsoft and Google carry outsize weight. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Stocks and mutual funds rallied through second quarter of 2014, with Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rising 4.7 percent; rich valuations and extreme bullishness may look like signs of euphoria, but other evidence suggests that investors are more bored than thrilled. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Paul J Lim Fundamentally column; Europe’s economy is still in the early stages of recovery from recession, and many strategists see compelling reasons to invest in it; Morningstar reports average European equity fund gained 1.4 percent in second quarter of 2014 and 27.8 percent over past year. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Pimco Total Return, run by Bill Gross, has been the largest bond mutual fund for 17 years; his reign as the king of bonds, however, has been under siege of late; investors pulled $64 billion, or 22 percent of fund's $293 billion in assets, from May 2013 through June 2014; though Gross has trailed market slightly in 2014, he has outperformed bond market over long run. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Categories of mutual funds that focus on value stocks generally outperformed those that concentrate on growth in first half 2014. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Patience was key to the strong performance of three mutual funds in the second quarter of 2014; Federated Strategic Value Dividend fund, T Rowe Price Latin America fund and Guinness Atkinson Global Energy fund are highlighted; their managers describe their strategies. MORE

Jul. 13, 2014

Anna Bernasek Datapoints column; Investment Company Institute reports number of exchange-traded funds surged 78 percent from 2008 to 2013, to 1,294. MORE

Jun. 1, 2014

Jeff Sommer Strategies column holds that mutual fund fees can sometimes offer better insight into quality than past performance; cites analysis by Morningstar upholding old wisdom that funds with low fees are likelier to outperform their peers. MORE

Apr. 19, 2014

Ron Lieber Your Money column on Randy Kurtz, who nine years ago made an extraordinary bet on himself, the stock market and his ability to pick a few winners; notes he told his investors unless his investments outperformed Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, they would pay him nothing; says despite all his success at picking stocks, Kurtz now mostly buys index and exchange-traded funds for his clients. MORE

Apr. 10, 2014

International Monetary Fund warns that American mutual fund investors with significant exposure to bonds issued by indebted companies in fast-growing economies like Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey may be at risk; report comes as fears mount about emerging markets. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Enthusiasm has rapidly grown for unconstrained bond funds, which can make use of any type of debt, long- or short-term, as investors seek enhanced returns during period of record-low interest rates; funds can be riskier than their traditional counterparts. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Paul J Lim Fundamentally column notes that bargain-minded investors are making their way back to emerging-market funds despite year in which values dropped due to slowing Chinese economy and tensions with Russia. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Investments in cloud computing, personalized medicine, robotics and other tech innovations brought big returns for some mutual funds in the first quarter of 2014. MORE

Apr. 6, 2014

Anna Bernasek Datapoints column notes that while exchange-traded funds remain far smaller than mutual funds, their assets grew at a faster clip in year ending in February 2014. MORE

Mar. 18, 2014

The abrupt rise and increasing success of activist investors are forcing big money managers to reassess their traditionally passive role as shareholders. MORE

Mar. 8, 2014

Wealth Matters column on how best to evaluate fund managers; says that five years after low point of recession, it is still important to judge managers not only on their performance, but on their strategies and style as well. MORE

Mar. 2, 2014

Jeff Sommer Strategies column; Securities and Exchange Commission releases bulletin for investors, offering stark reminder of profound impact that investment fees can have on mutual fund and portfolio returns; says it is nearly impossible to avoid fees altogether, but there are ways to exert some control--for example, by shopping around. MORE

Feb. 11, 2014

Investing in high-end wines can be profitable, as it has been for investors in the Bottled Asset Fund, but it is not always a sure-thing; hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in wine funds; many have had rocky performance, but a few have been able to consistently beat equity markets. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Gretchen Morgenson Fair Game column says paper by Financial Stability Board and International Organization of Securities Commissioners lays out how regulators plan to identify financial entities that are not banks or insurance firms but nonetheless are systemically significant and whose failure could pose threat; points out that $53 trillion is overseen by United States money management industry. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Some funds, known by nickname 'guru funds,' are trying to copy the investments of leading hedge fund managers and well-known investors and entrepreneurs, but not everyone thinks the approach makes for canny investing; replicating others' investments is not always simple to do. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Stock market ended 2013 at record highs and with indicators of investor optimism near best-ever levels; stock fund managers achieved their best year since 1991, with average domestic equity fund in Morningstar's database up 30.4 percent; for various reasons, however, some strategists say investors should rein in their enthusiasm for 2014. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Paul J Lim Fundamentally column; Europe is finally starting to emerge from recession, with broad MSCI Europe stock index up 20.7 percent in 2013; some fund managers are sifting for those companies that have best resisted the undertow and have growth potential. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Financial advisers say even several tenths of percentage point in mutual fund operating expenses means a lot; they point out that when mutual fund returns shrink, their annual costs start to stand out; Morningstar says average total expense ratio is 1.33 percent of assets a year for domestic stock funds and 0.97 percent for domestic bond funds. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Mutual funds concentrating in industrial shares outperformed the broader stock market in 2013, with gains averaging over 41 percent; some managers see continued strong gains in 2014. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Some of the best-performing mutual funds for the final three months of 2013 found gains in businesses as diverse as trucking, technology and automotive paint shops; Pacific Advisors Small Cap Value, Waddell & Reed Science and Technology and Oberweis International Opportunities funds are highlighted. MORE

Jan. 12, 2014

Threat of rising interest rates, which had lurked for five years, finally materialized in 2013, pushing total bond fund returns into negative territory; benchmark Barclays US Aggregate bond index fell 2 percent; bond investors have little wiggle room as Federal Reserve begins scaling back its stimulus. MORE

Dec. 8, 2013

Jeff Sommer Strategies column; longtime mutual fund manager Robert A Olstein says if an investor is relying on index funds, they are celebrating mediocrity; contends that the rise of index funds, with more than $3 trillion in holdings, is part of trend of sloppy investing; his flagship Olstein All Cap Value Fund has returned 10.7 percent annualized since its 1995 inception. MORE

Nov. 11, 2013

Funds based on so-called fundamental indexes try to beat the market by giving value stocks greater weight. MORE

Oct. 26, 2013

Tara Siegel Bernard Your Money column warns investors to exercise extreme caution when investing in alternative mutual funds; advises such funds are designed to go against normal investing trend and inherently carry large risk. MORE